PlayStation 2

Sonic Unleashed is seen as one of the biggest 3D entries in the history of Sonic. Whether you like the werehog or not, it brought a massive overhaul to the game design philosophy of Sonic working in the third dimension. The beautiful environments based on real-life locations, fast gameplay and a unique lighting engine all housed under the “Hedgehog Engine” helped achieve a major milestone for fast-paced 3D platformers. Fast forward towards the end of the downer year that is 2016, it has brought us one thing that can shed some meaningful insight on the development of Sonic Unleashed; the release of an Xbox 360 preview build.

At least, the first disk.

Forum user N!NJA released the build two days ago and already there has been several discoveries thanks to the efforts of others data mining information, uploading screenshots, videos and more. In addition the build also comes with debugging tools that highlights NPC and enemy behavior status, camera direction and gameplay control modifiers. While you can run the build on a modified Xbox 360 console, it is recommended to use a dev kit as you may run into crashes forcing you to shut down the console.

Some of the notable differences include…

60fps! …but not very stable, lots of screen tearing and drops

Unused level and object layouts

Placeholder graphics

Old menu system seen in early E3 previews

Old GUI, especially for the Sonic the Werehog stages

…and more!

N!NJA promises to release builds for other Sonic titles in the near future. If you want a quick look at the preview build, hit the jump to check out some links! Stay up to date with the discoveries thread to see what all has been unearthed from the preview build thus far or take a look at the build for yourself in the discussion thread.

Summer Games Done Quick is the annual event, like its alternate event Awesome Games Done Quick, is a week-long charity marathon that helps raise money for the Doctors Without Borders. Donating during each run also puts you n for raffles to win prizes. Be sure to tune in, check the schedule and watch how Sonic has gotta go fast.

Right off, this is not “Xtreme”, the canceled Sega Saturn game, but something else.

You may remember a few months back we posted video of a previously unknown Sonic game found on the hard drive of an XDK Developmental Xbox called Sonic Extreme, featuring Sonic and Shadow on hover boards doing kickflips, 50/50 grinds and going vert off ramps in a Green Hill/Seaside Hill hybrid similar to Tony Hawk Pro Skater.

I promise never to do skateboard talk again.

For those of you craving a little more than videos and want to play this title, and you happen to be near Portland, Ore., the Game Trader booth at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo will feature the game for the public to play.

The game was determined to be an extremely early pitch demo for a Sonic skateboarding game that, after some cleaning up and changes in gameplay, would later become the first Sonic Riders title for the PlayStation 2, Gamecube, Xbox, and PC. The earliest rumors of the game’s existence back in the mythical year of 2005 also had it named “Sonic Extreme” and “Sonic R-2.” The “Extreme” part of the name still lives on in-game in the form of the hover boards, “Extreme Gear.”

For more about the history of Sonic Extreme, just check out its page on our wiki. The Retro Gaming Expo is set to start on Sept. 24.

Before you panic from the repressed memories of the game, bear with me here.

Forum member princeofknaves uploaded an old version of the RenderWare Graphics World Viewer, which could be used to view Sonic Heroes level maps as well as possibly allow moving them to other games like Sonic Adventure DX: Director’s Cut.

But that’s not all. DaGuAr, a user at the Spanish-speaking Sonic Reikai forums, found that this viewer can also view Shadow the Hedgehog’s level maps too. This isn’t surprising since the two games run on very similar engines.